When old Gordon Scott greeted me, he would catch me off guard if I wasn’t careful.
Gordon: “Hello brother, how’s the world treating you?”
Me: “Good, thank you, brother.”
Gordon: “Oh, that’s bad.”
At which point he enjoyed, yet another, chuckle at my expense.
His point rang true, and still does.
Gordon would often talk about the ‘Gospel of John’ that he would carry around with him in the early days of his Christian walk. The roots of his humorous greeting went back to Jesus’ words in John 15:19—“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you” (John 15:19).
By saying, “yes,” to following Jesus, you are saying, “no,” to following the world.
This world loves its own, and we have chosen a way of thinking that excludes us from ever again being ‘one of their own.
’Jesus told his unbelieving younger brothers: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil” (Jn.7:7). The brothers dismissed Jesus as the Saviour of the world. Though raised in his very presence, they were under the influence of the ‘ruler of this world’—Satan (Jn.12:31).
James and Jude would become believers in the Risen Christ. Their New Testament Books reveal that they both became convicted that love for this world is hatred towards their brother Jesus.
The world thinks us mad to believe in a dead man who claimed that he died on a cross to forgive the world of sin. They do not believe that they have any sins for which to be forgiven. Christ’s kingdom is not of this world (Jn.18:36). It stands as a refuge for those who believe that they must flee the kingdom of darkness—this world. The World Loves its Own—and that excludes You!
John Staiger
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